The call came from Hunter Creek Middle School, and for a moment, Jennifer Sodtto thought it was routine. An absence notification. Her daughter Meline hadn’t shown up for class. Jennifer texted the teacher.
The response came back cold and final: Meline hadn’t been in any of her classes that day. The entire attendance sheet was empty for her. That morning, Jennifer’s boyfriend, Stephan Sterns, had told her he was driving thirteen-year-old Meline to school. He hadn’t dropped her at the gate.
He claimed he let her out a few blocks away, near a church, because the girl was embarrassed by his silver Lincoln MKZ. It didn’t matter. Meline never made it to the building. By evening, the missing person’s report was filed.
Jennifer told deputies she had gone with Stephan that morning, that she had seen her daughter in her green hoodie and white Crocs. But the story shifted. Under questioning, she admitted she never saw Meline that day. She woke briefly when Stephan took the dogs out, then went back to sleep.
The school’s warning, the teacher’s confirmation, the phone Meline left behind—none of it made her flinch. When deputies asked Stephan about his own phone, he mentioned he had reset it while trying to update it. Jennifer brushed that off too. She stood by him.
Even when she learned Meline’s phone was still at home, even when her daughter had a history of running away but never without it, she didn’t connect the dots. The truth, when it came out, was monstrous. Investigators found Stephan’s Google Drive contained roughly 1,700 images of child sexual abuse material—all of it featuring Meline. Some of the photos showed her asleep.
The metadata dated back to August 2022, when she was eleven years old. Stephan had been assaulting her for years inside the family home. People around Meline had noticed something was deeply wrong. Classmates described her as anxious and withdrawn, sometimes arriving in tears, leaning on a companion to move through the halls.
Her science teacher said she was exhausted, unable to focus, rarely turning in assignments. Her chorus teacher said the once-vibrant girl who loved singing and dancing had become irritable and negative. The school counselor noted her panic attacks and anxiety, tied to tension at home and her strained relationship with her mother. Everyone noticed the shift was worse when Stephan was around.
Meline complained about her mother to friends, saying Jennifer had threatened to kick her out when she turned eighteen. But she never said a word against Stephan. The silence was bought with fear. Jennifer later admitted to federal investigators that she had raised concerns about Stephan.
She told them she had always feared a “Woody Allen situation,” where the stepfather grooms the child. She said she thought he was safe, that he loved Meline the way she did. But she was wrong. She also admitted she was never comfortable with Meline and Stephan sleeping in the same room—but she still allowed it.
She claimed she could count those times on one hand. The 1,700 photos on his drive told a different story. Two days after Meline vanished, detectives arrested Stephan as the prime suspect. The day before, the sheriff’s office had asked the public for help finding her.
Stephan gave his first formal interview around that time, claiming he and Meline had gone to McDonald’s that morning, that she fell asleep in the car, that he woke her but she didn’t want food, so he dropped her near the school. Detectives picked apart his story, and it shifted multiple times. A search the next day turned up nothing. Police obtained Stephan’s consent to search his phone, and they found evidence that proved he had never dropped her off at school.
They searched the family’s Kissimmee home. By that point, Stephan and Jennifer had checked into a hotel with his father. Jennifer said Stephan was visibly panicked. On the night of February 28th, Stephan quietly left the hotel and drove to Northport.
His mother insisted she never saw him. A phone call days later revealed why he went: he wanted to grab a few things, get his ducks in a row, prepare himself for what was coming. Investigators believe he used his parents’ Wi-Fi to try to purge his Google account of evidence. He failed.
Police recovered the files. Surveillance footage showed Stephan tossing Meline’s backpack and school-issued laptop into a dumpster at the Kissimmee apartment complex around 7:35 a. m. on February 26th—the same day she was reported missing.
Other footage showed him driving around with what looked like a limp body in his car. It was Meline. She had been strangled, most likely in her own home. Her body was found on March 1st, in a wooded area off Hickory Tree Road in Osceola County, tucked between two trees.
It was barely a twenty-minute drive from her home. When detectives showed Jennifer the proof that her daughter had been assaulted in her own home, she broke down violently. But when they told her Meline might be dead, no tears came. A detective asked her about the difference.
Jennifer replied, “Because that was physical proof. That was proof of what was happening. That destroyed me. Until I see a body, I have hope that she’s still alive.
”
Meline had celebrated her thirteenth birthday on February 25th, the night before she disappeared. Jennifer couldn’t attend the party because of work. She arrived home late, struggling, overwhelmed by a wave of depression unlike anything she had felt in years. She had forgotten to take her medication.
She sent Stephan to sleep with Meline in the guest room upstairs so she could rest. It was the last time she ever saw her daughter alive. Stephan’s father turned over several of his son’s belongings, including an old computer, a hard drive, and two USB drives. One of the drives contained more than 35,000 images of child sexual abuse material.
In a phone call in April, Stephan told his father, “You know that I would have never wanted that for Meline. I am not sure really that any one person is specifically responsible. It’s probably a combination of factors that led to it. I have never felt anything like that before.
It was horrible. ”
He was deflecting. The evidence told a different story. On April 24th, a grand jury indicted Stephan on first-degree murder.
The police chief stated that the evidence showed a man entrusted to keep Meline safe who made calculated moves to dispose of her belongings and place her body in the woods before she was even reported missing. In September, further interviews were released. When confronted with his lies, Stephan stayed silent and requested an attorney. Jennifer claimed she only realized he was a predator on May 1st, when she was shown the evidence.
A detective pressed her: “After you found out he was a predator, didn’t you say he needed a lawyer? ” She answered coldly, “I did. ”
By July 2025, Stephan entered a no-contest plea to first-degree murder and admitted guilt to twenty related offenses to avoid the death penalty. The judge handed down life in prison without parole for the murder, with additional life sentences for the other crimes.
Meline’s father, Tyler Wallace, spoke through tears. He described his daughter as happiness, joy, quirky, intelligent, curious. He said he was finally getting closer to her when her mother moved her away. The last time he saw her was in October 2023, when she visited for a few days.
At the airport, he asked her if, when she turned thirteen, she would choose to live with him and her stepmother, Tatiana. She said yes. “I was this close to having my little girl,” he said. “Because of the actions of this depraved man, I will never meet the woman she was becoming.
”
Stephan made a brief statement, saying he wasn’t happy Meline wasn’t there anymore, that he prayed to God to trade places with her, that he had nothing but sorrow, that she had a beautiful voice and he hoped she joined the choir in heaven. Jennifer was absent from the plea hearing. She offered no statement. She has never been charged.
Law enforcement said they did not feel, at the time, that she had done anything that warranted criminal charges. At the site where Meline’s body was found, community members held a vigil. Her stepmother Tatiana spoke, remembering her laughter, her optimism, her resilience, the long blonde hair she loved to brush and braid. Tyler placed flowers and broke down, excusing himself from the crowd.
A year later, family and community gathered again at Lakefront Park. A small wall of plush toys was left behind, because Meline loved stuffed animals. Her stepmother urged the crowd to be a voice for those who cannot speak. “If you see something, say something.
Time is fleeting, and silence can be unforgiving. ”
